The Most Haunted Story in History
by Rin0rourke
Summary: Dash’s new house is perfect, with one tiny little setback, it’s haunted. Nobody believes him but he knows the ghost is there, and he has to get rid of it before his family’s dream house becomes their worst nightmare. Slash in later chapters
1. Chapter 1

"Getting rid of ghosts is something else altogether. First, you have to know why the ghost is there and then you have to understand the ghost's problem so you can help it to free itself."

Dash's new house is perfect, an old Victorian, big spacious rooms, long corridors, a huge wine cellar, and a recently modernized kitchen to die for. There is just one tiny little setback, it's haunted. Dash's family doesn't believe him, and neither do his friends, but he knows the ghost is there, and he has to get rid of it before his family's dream house becomes their worst nightmare. Through all the twists and turns of the past, trying to uncover the mystery locking the specter to the house, Dash finds himself slowly befriending the fading memory of what had once been a human boy.

The quote above is a slightly altered piece from Haunting by Joan Lowery Nixon. This story was slightly inspired by it. I actually have been planning it for a while, but reading Haunting actually made me pick of a pen and scribble. Therefore, I dedicate this to JLN, because I can.

-

The car jolted to the side suddenly, turning the smooth relaxing eight-hour drive from the airport into a bouncing rhythm for near half a minute. Dash's mom cried out from the back seat where she had been naping since they left the city.

"What on earth?"

"Just a few potholes Mom," Dash said, leaning forward to scan the radio for the umpteenth time since they started this last leg. Dash hated that phrase, "last leg of the trip." It always reminded him of amputee stories he heard when he volunteered down at the veterans home. He shuddered, fiddling with the buttons of the rental.

"Stop that." His dad removed his hand from the wheel long enough to swat him. "There's no reception out here for another twenty miles at least." He pointed to a road sign saying exactly how much further the next town was.

"Yeah, and all that will be playing is country and oldies." Dash huffed and fell back into his seat. It really didn't matter what they played, as long as this long silence was destroyed, obliterated, shattered, smashed, ruined! His CD player, yes CD player, he was old fashioned, what of it, had died on him on the plane and he had to listen to the kid seated next to him, because he was the only other teenager on the plane, yammer on about how he should have just got an iPod or something.

Dash had had an iPod once, but two weeks after joining the musical trend he sat down and it broke. At least he could put his CD player in his back pocket and it not break.

Once he got his computer set up at the new house he would just listen to the radio online, simple solution to the bad taste shared by his future neighbors, but it didn't help him now.

He switched the power button on his CD player to ON for probably the same number of times he's fiddled with the radio, seeing if some magical boring-car-drive god decided to bestow his batteries with mystical power. No such luck. The little green light flickered and sputtered in the way dying batteries could only make it do.

Swell.


	2. Chapter 2

Dash slammed the car door, the finality of it assuring him that, indeed, the torturous car drive was at an end. He felt like punching his fist into the air and declaring himself a survivor, but that kind of behavior was reserved for idiots and losers, and he was neither. So instead, he simply jammed his thumbs into his belt loops and snorted, turning to look at the large Victorian house his great aunt had once called home.

It was, indeed, breathtaking. Two stories high, three if you counted the attic, and the kind of old, dull brown you would imagine meant wood rot, but no. The brown was the wood, smooth and sanded and, though a bit weather worn, perfect as the day it was cut.

Dash put a hand on one of the carved beams supporting the porch roof. It was engraved, delicate carvings done, no doubt, by his aunt. His father said she was a sculpture and had done most of the carvings in the house. He touched a finger to the growling lions head, about the size of his fist. The detail was beautiful. He would have liked to have known this aunt of his.

"Oh it's marvelous!" His mom cried, twirling in the center of the foyer, her feet wrinkling the velvet rug as they tried to keep her body in its circular motions. "It's all like a dream; I can't believe it's ours!" She ran off in some direction, not caring where she started touring, just that she sees more of the fully furnished, large, magnificent house.

"She really is excited." Dash jolted, turning to stare at his great aunt's attorney, Maurice Foley.

"Hello Mr. Foley." Dash said with reserve. His experience with lawyers had always been unpleasant. They were smooth, charming, greasy slimes that ate up people's money and helped in the off chance they got in trouble, were swindled, or died, and a will had to be read.

Maurice smiled, his eyes laughing. He didn't feel like someone Dash should look out for, but some people never do. "I hope you all got here without a problem." He said.

Since both his parents had wondered off like unattended children in a shopping mall, Dash was left to deal with the potential threat. "My batteries died way too early for my liking," He held up his CD player, "But other than that, no. Mom didn't even get jetlag."

"Well, that is good news." Maurice smiled that kind, gentlemanly smile that Dash still didn't trust.

"Can you tell me about the house?" Dash found himself asking before he could stop himself.

"To tell you the truth I don't know much myself." Maurice walked into the foyer and stood beside Dash. "I met your aunt when she found her old lawyer had been swindling some of her money for scientology. She had lost almost everything, her millions had turned to the hundred thousands overnight, and she was quite a wreck."

'How like a layer.' Was all Dash could think. They started up the stairs, "Did she carve all these designs?" he asked, his fingers fitting into the grooves of the long winding snake that was the banister."

"Yes, most of them. Some are from her granddaughter. The snake railing was her granddaughter's." Dash shivered, the scales were well done, and he pulled his hand away. "She managed to get some of her money back, two, three million. Nevertheless, it was not what she had before and as this land has its own wellspring, its property value was enormous, so was its property tax."

"That's what kills a lot of people." Dash said.

"That's right. They spend all their lives paying off their homes then when they retire, they don't have the kind of cash to keep up with the property tax. Many end up selling their houses to big agencies who then tear down the homes and develop it." They peaked into rooms, big rooms, with large open windows and huge drapes that closed to envelope the entire room in darkness and protect the furniture. "It's a tragedy."

'So you say.' Dash thought, but he knew most people, like lawyers, loved the high property taxes. More money for them.

There was a horn blaring outside and Maurice swore, going into one of the rooms and looking out the window. "My wife and son are getting restless." Maurice said, opening the window and leaning out. "Five more minutes Tucker!" He yelled down to who, Dash could only guess, was his son behind the wheel of the car, leaning on the horn with an impatient look.

"Here," He said, handing Dash the big briefcase he had been carrying since he arrived. "Everything's in here." He handed Dash this strange looking key, it was metal on the end, but the handle was wooden, and carved into what looked like a skull, the key looked like a serpents tongue coming out through its teeth.

"It hasn't been opened since she handed it to me eight years ago." Mr. Foley said. "She gave me strict instructions to give it to you, not your father." That surprised Dash; he hadn't figured his aunt even knew of him. Though he shouldn't have been shocked, his father was her only family since her daughter died. "She was really pressing on this. Said grownups wouldn't understand." With that, and a low chuckle, Mr. Maurice Foley, the only person Dash had ever been truly confused by, left.

-

The leather was soft, like cream, a kind of soft only expensive shoes and well-worn biker gloves were allowed to be. The key, an obvious jest at skeleton keys, was really, really creepy and he didn't think he'd like what was inside too much, so instead of opening it right away he carried it with him as he continued exploring the second story and all its bedrooms, looking for a room he could call his own.

Finally, he decided on a nice looking guest room, as the masters would be taken by his parents and he did not want to claim his cousin's, which despite all the clearing out still looked like it belonged to her.

His room, as he now staked claim, was decorated in the way all guest rooms were, like most hotel rooms were, homey but without a shred of personalization. It had the usual lamp, a well-made bed that would make an army general proud, a dresser with a vanity, and a large rug. It also had a window seat, something no other room, even the master's, had. It was the reason Dash chose it, because of that one, and only, difference.

There was no closet, only a wardrobe that would fit him and his cloths and probably still have room for a monster to hide in too. A wardrobe made for big dresses no doubt. A large wardrobe and a vanity. Hmm.

That's it, this was officially a female guest room!

Well it was his room now. And with that, he threw the leather case on the bed and put his player on the nightstand. Female room or not, he was glad for the large closet and the mirror, but most of all, he was glad for the window seat.

Climbing up on it, he pressed his nose to the paneled window. Unlike the other windows of the house, this one opened out on hinges, where most of the others just pushed up on cords. They all had shutters, but this one had big ones, it was a big window, and relatively new. The little square panels would probably annoy someone if they wanted a good view of the large garden his aunt had, it was a very impressive yard, but he liked it because when it snowed, as it often did in this area during winter, the snow and frost would collect there and be such a wonderful atmospheric affect.

He fluffed one of the pillows there, it gave off some dust and he had to bat the air away before he could breath normally again, and leaned back. It was a great place to read historical romance books, in fact it was the perfect place to read historical books, especially romance.

The curtains closed on the outside of the seat, making the spot its own secluded hideaway, and since the other rooms didn't have one, he felt pretty privileged.

A glance at the bed reminded him of the secret briefcase, the one made for him, not his parents, and the whole conspiracy of it finally lured him in. A curiosity he hadn't had before, as he was more curious about which room he'd be spending the night it, pulled him away from the window and he picked up the bag.

"What the hell?" He looked down at the lock keeping the thing closed. The key he'd been given wouldn't open this lock! It was new, and thin, like a car key or a padlock. And more importantly, the keys to it were on a little metal ring looped through the zipper of the front pocket. "So, what's this key to?" He asked aloud, pulling the large skeleton key from his back pocket.

Taking the bag over to the window he sat back and unlocked it, pulling out three bundles of paper, a thick folder, a manila envelope, and a few wrapped packages. He decided to open the manila envelope first, as it had his name written in a pretty calligraphy style and it said, "open first." Obey your elders, or in this case stylish writing on envelopes.

It was a letter, nothing long or fancy, just a letter from his aunt who he'd never met, at least not to his knowledge, and who'd never so much as sent him a Christmas card.

"_Dear Dashiel."_

Great, just like an old person to use full names. At least it wasn't all of it, complete with middle and surname.

"_You undoubtedly wonder why this is for you, since we've never met, in fact without the pictures your mom sends I'm certain I wouldn't even know what you look like."_

Way to feel loved.

"_Your father was always a sturdy, no nonsense child, and no doubt has grown into a stern, no nonsense man. My granddaughter and he never got along well, she was a free imaginative spirit and a he was such a stiff, even then, so like my son and his wife. As much as I would love to meet him now, I shudder to think of how he would look at my trivialities and me. I am, like my granddaughter, an overly imaginative woman._

_Doubtless you wonder, as you are your father's child, what the point of this ramble is."_

Well yeah but, be polite, even if it is to a decade old note.

_My granddaughter and I stumbled across something while living here. A special secret, a treasure if you will. Not a pirate's treasure, like gold or jewels, but a historical treasure. Of course, we never actually found all of it, just bits and pieces and hints, like a scavenger hunt. Your father would come over to visit sometimes and boy would he get all huffy when we talked or searched. _

"_It's just a stupid game. Why do you take it so seriously?" He would say. That is why I am giving it to you, because, despite my enthusiasm, fifty years and I still haven't uncovered the whole secret. Now I'm getting on in age, my legs and bones aren't good for the kind of work the searching requires, and well, without my wonderful granddaughter it just, it doesn't seem right to continue. However, I can't bear to think of this just disappearing for another century because your father is such a stiff, unrelenting realist_

_Everything you need is here, in the briefcase. The paper holds our notes and research, the binder is full of scans and pictures of everything you will need so you won't have to go through the work of looking through hundreds of books like we did. I also leave you my daughter's journal and some items we have found very useful. The library, if your father does not plan on sacking and selling everything, is yours to look through as well._

_I've instructed Maurice to be specific in that I leave the books to you, your father, though he does love his literature, doesn't see the worth of keeping the valuable old ones when there are nice newer versions available. Also, not many of the books would be to his taste. Most of these books are not ours to give you see, but the original owner's of this house, and it just would not be proper to sell them. Your father doesn't understand this, but I hope you do. _

_Strange, and a bit of a gamble on my part, to leave all this to someone I don't really know. But I've seen in your pictures your wide, inquisitive eyes. I am not much of a judge of character, my recent misshap may prove that, but in this, I really want to be right. _

_This is quite a gift I have left you Dashiel. Truly, it is, but don't let it consume you as it did my granddaughter, please. For your own safety, don't let it consume you, but don't be afraid of it either. This is a great adventure. A lifelong one in my case._

_Your distant but loving Aunt._

_Who shall remain nameless._

Dash set down the paper and looked out the window, letting everything sink in.

"A scavenger hunt huh?" He asked aloud. "A lifelong scavenger hunt, sounds a little too national treasure-ish."

He remembered what his grandmother had written. _For your own safety, don't let it consume you._ His cousin has died so suddenly, her parents and her, all in a fire. They said his cousin had refused to leave the house without something. Her mother and father had gone after her, but they didn't make it. The roof collapsed on them, destroying everything. Killing them.

Had it really had something to do with this?

"Dash?" He jumped, nearly falling off the seat. "Dash, where'd you go off to?"

Quickly, like it was some naughty pornographic secret, he scrambled to put everything on the window seat and close the curtain.

"In here Mom!" He called, sitting on his bed and pretending to be looking in the drawers of the nightstand.

"So, you decided on this room?" She asked, standing in the doorway and looking at the room with a critical eye. "You know it's a girls room right?"

"Yeah." He said, closing the drawers. "But I don't care. I like it."

"Sweetie, why don't you take the other room, the big one?" The one closest to them, was what she didn't say.

"I like this one." He said firmly.

"Okay then." She smiled through her disappointment. "We're ordering pizza, it'll take an hour or so to get here as we're so far out, but until the movers come tomorrow I can't go grocery shopping." She looked around, "It's so dark in here, shouldn't you open the curtains or—"

"No!" Dash jumped up from the bed.

"What's wrong?" She paused, her hands fisting the thick drapes.

"The...the furniture. See, the rug looks a little sun bleached. I, I don't think It's a good idea to open the curtains when the sun is shining in."

His mom studied the section of the ornate rug near the window but, since the curtains were closed, it was too dark to notice whether the rug was damaged or not. "Well I guess you're right. And since it's getting close to sunset anyway turning on the lamps for a small hour of the day wouldn't hurt." She let go of the curtains and Dash let out the breath he'd been holding.

She walked over and patted his cheek. "Don't spend all day exploring just this one room." She said with a wink and left. Dash rubbed at his cheek where she'd touched him, pats on the cheek were too old lady-like for his tastes. He preferred a kiss on the forehead or a hug from his mom, but no, she had to be all equality and shit. Saying how he's a young man and young men don't like to be coddled.

Tsk, says she.

But she was right; he did want to explore the rest of the house, particularly the attic and library. But first, opening the curtains slightly, just in case his mom came back, he gathered up all the papers and the little wrapped bundles, three of them like the letter said, and put them in the vanity drawer. He would probably turn it into a desk or something.

Shutting his door, the key tucked into his pocket just in case he came across a door it might fit to, he turned to start looking for the entrance to the attic.

He figured there might be like a roof entrance, his old house had one that pulled down by a cord, but his father said old houses like this tended to have narrow stairwells behind doors that looked like closets. So he started opening doors.

He had already seen most of the bedrooms, there were two or three he hadn't seen yet and they looked pretty much the same as the others save they had windows on the opposite side.

The hallway was shaped like a wide U, with the master bedroom and three large rooms, the largest having been his cousin's, sharing one hallway and four small guestrooms on the opposite hallway. Dash had chosen to get a room from the west side because he liked to watch the sun set, and his room was the closest to the end of the hallway where what he assumed was a linen closet or modernized washroom was. His mom said the reason the guest rooms were smaller was that there was a large washroom and closets on that side of the house, where the larger rooms had their own adjoining washrooms.

Dash skipped over his parents and the other large rooms and took closer looks at the large, walk in closets, looking for roof entrances or hidden doorways. He crossed over the stairwell again, waving to his dad who was looking around the first floor, scratching his balding head and grinning.

Back on his corridor, he started looking on the opposite side of his room. The other hall, what he'd started calling the master wing, had the large bedroom taking up the entire middle section with large French doors opening up out into the balcony. This hall had one room on the end with the window and, he found, the large washroom he had wanted to see.

It was tiled, modernized, with a porcelain faucet and toilet in a three walled booth of sorts. The shower was large as well, a separate room of its own, with three heads that could be either for three separate occupants or adjusted to spray at one person.

The bath was something different altogether. With grooves in the marble floor for candles surrounding a lion claw tub, the three-walled room was small compared to the showers, but it was decorated with all kinds of marble carvings. He turned the water on; the knobs were four fish that swirled around each other in sets of two.

Hot water immediately started pouring into the tub. The faucet, which was bronze, spouted out of the mouth of a water dragon who looked to be clawing its way up out of the floor and gripping the edge of the tub like a sea monster attacking a ship, the fish knobs were clutched in his claws. The tub was huge, six foot long and two foot deep. It was large enough for two people to fit romantically snug inside.

"Couldn't exploring wait until after a bath?" he asked himself. There was still soap and other bath time necessities on a low granite shelf fixed into the marble floor. It looked like a reef, with fish and other aquatic creatures climbing the coral.

A few towels hung from racks shaped like tree limbs, some birds looked down from the walls, not statues, but engraved pictures. The racks protruded out of carvings of trees like sudden 3D images.

Dash undressed, laying his cloths over a large turtle bench.

The tub was just the right temperature when he climbed in, the dragon, whose glowering should have been unnerving, made him feel protected. Like a golem warding against bad things.

His parents had their own bathroom in their room, and the other three large guest rooms all had their own as well. Unless they suddenly were overrun with long lost family or his parents decided to host the next class reunion, this bathroom was all his.

All his.

"All mine." Dash said relaxed.

This wasn't as bad as he originally thought it would be.

Oh, what joy it is to finish this oh so wonderful first chapter.

Normally I'd start off with this really catching prologue, probably with how Danny became a ghost, or maybe with Sam's or her grandmother's death. (Don't kill me, it had to be done!)

But I wanted those things to be mysteries, things you'll find out about as you continue reading.

Also, I have had the big assed house in my mind for a while now (I planned a big Victorian house for a comic my friend was planning, but never got around to it. I have a few blueprint sketches and some general information I will put together and dump in my deviant art gallery soon (OMG sketch dump w00t!) at which time I'll give you lot a link. Maybe. Or maybe I'll make you work for it.

Also, the tub room part of the bathroom is my dream bathroom. I've already got plans and everything. I just needs the money to build it.


	3. Chapter 3

Danny glared down at the two cars in the driveway. His driveway.

"What do they want?" He asked aloud, knowing nobody would answer him. Nobody ever answered him. No one could hear him to answer him. "Why can't somebody just talk to me for once?" He asked the room. No answer, as usual. He was alone, all alone.

Save for the living who were wondering around his house, touching his things, making plans no doubt to change what he had work on, what he had built, what he had arranged. "Why can't they just go away?" He gritted his teeth. Loneliness made one angry with others. Loneliness made people bitter. And he had been lonely far too long.

He drifted down in the entrance hall. Normally there would be a big stairwell, but here the stairs were off to the side, unseen from the doorway, and sweeping around to the second floor landing. It was made for big entrances with wide flowing skirts. It was also made to hide the room behind the stairwell.

The girl who played here sometimes had took painstaking care to carve the winding oak banister into a long dragon like snake with a wide, gaping mouth at the end.

"Oh this railing is just horrendous. Scary! It'll frighten away visitors!" the woman said, grating on his nerves. If they so much as splintered the work Sam had done for him, they would be hanging from the rafters in fright. He would make sure of it.

"Hello Mr. Foley." Danny turned to glare at the blonde brute they had brought with him. He looked like one of those noblemen he'd always despised, a slicked back and slimy.

He recognized the man in the doorway as the old woman's new attorney. He never liked the old one, had known the bastard would swindle her eventually. This knew one though; he was nice, even if his son was kind of a bother. Always talking about what he would do if this was his house, TVs, computers, satellites.

It would be a laboratory!

Kind of like it had been with his parents around, but at least they had a taste for the arts. That brat never appreciated the pains his mother, father, sister and he had gone through to build and design this house. Tucker Foley had no taste for the arts; he would never hold this house, like the old woman's children would never hold the house.

Like this man, this new, fat, balding man and his family would never hold this house. They were going around making plans.

"Now honey, it's such a treasure, you don't want to ruin something so unique now do you? What a conversation starter it would be! And no one can see it from the doorway."And the two annoying adults continued up the stairs. He didn't miss them in the least.

"I hope you all got here without a problem." The black man said. Danny always rather liked him, even if his son was an annoyance sometimes. The family wasn't so bad.

"My batteries died way too early for my liking, but other than that, no. Mom didn't even get jetlag." Oh how typically teenage. Didn't all the new kids have like iPods or something? Tucker did.

The blonde asked about the house and for a second Danny was surprised. No one ever asks about the house other than the usual "is it structurally sound? Who lived here before? Anyone famous? Is there secret passageways? What kind of people were they? Do you think they might have hidden something here?" No one ever asked about just the house.

Mr. Foley started in on how little he knew, which was the truth, and how he had met the old woman. Did anyone know her name? She never liked names. She was just old woman or grandma. Danny was amused by that. And by her artistic ability, she and Sam had added so much more to what he and his family had started.

They started up the stairs, Danny following them with his eyes "Did she carve all these designs?" The boys asked, his big hands not so much groping the rail, as his parents had done, but rather caressing it. Danny eyed him, wondering.

"Yes, most of them. Some are from her granddaughter. The snake railing was her granddaughter's." The boy shivered, Danny saw, and continued. He hadn't meant to concentrate on him so fiercely; he had made the boy uneasy for a second.

They went on about money, taxes, and such. Hard times, hard times. When wasn't this country in some kind of hard time? Even during prohibition, when everyone was supposed to be having a grand old time; people were still being shot up and killed.

In fact, some people tried to turn this house into some bootlegging operation. He wouldn't have minded too much if they hadn't blown out his bedroom's window with bullets. Still, he owed the updated piping in the house to them. So he had opted to only scare them off, rather than expose their fiasco and ruin them.

With a yawn he effectively tuned out their conversation, choosing then to lose himself in his history until a loud shrieking of a horn came twirling through, shattering the calm of the house. With a glare in the direction of the door Danny headed up to the second floor where Foley would be looking down at Tucker, without a doubt it was Tucker, leaning heavily on the horn. He didn't really like being at the house since that prank Danny had played on him in the tenth grade.

Ah, yes, a whole year of Tuckerlessness was quite an accomplishment for him, even if he was just a bit lonelier than usual.

He was a bit of an antisocial.

Mr. Foley handed the old woman's briefcase to the blonde idiot, but Danny had ceased to care, as he often did, about the affair of the living. As annoying as the living were, unless they tried to do something to the house he didn't like, they could stay.

"Wait, what the hell?" he glared down at the two again. It couldn't be. She would NOT give that to anyone, she couldn't. He had given that to her special.

"She gave me strict instructions to give it to you, not your father."

It was the key. HIS key! Only Sam was allowed to use it, he had trusted her more than anyone in over a hundred years.

This was not happening. No one but the old woman and Sam could look at those things.

Certainly not this big gaping idiot!

He had to get that key back!

-

It had taken forever, the big dope insisting on looking though every room before deciding on one. Couldn't he be like every other living person and just throw his stuff down in the first big room he came across? They were all pretty much the same.

Well except the master bedroom, the large rooms were all the same, the guest bedrooms were all the same; well save for the one next to the bathroom but that was only because the window was on a different wall. Why didn't he just pick one so Danny could get that key back.

Dash came to the end of the master's hall and Danny figured he'd finally pick one of the three rooms when he turned and headed back down the hall, crossing over the landing and walking into the opposite hall where the guest rooms were.

Danny felt like screeching, he could if he wanted, but last time he had he broke a few windows. That was when Sam had died. But this wasn't an angry, pain filled need to screech. Just frustration, frustration and impatience, after spending over a hundred years here, you would think he'd learned some patience.

Dash looked through the rooms much like he did with the larger rooms, more a quick peak in the door than a real thorough check, which was all that kept Danny from pulling his hair out in vexation. He really, really wanted that key back.

Dash walked into Danny's old room, which had played guest room to some chick entertainer in the early nineteen hundreds that Danny didn't really like much. He was almost glad when her lover, who ran the bootlegging operation, found out she was leaking information and shot her up. Almost. He wasn't too happy about his window being shot to all oblivion.

Much to his dismay Dash lingered, putting his fists on his hips, the briefcase under his arm, he looked at the newly installed window, new to Danny, as it had only been eighty or so years. It was like turning sixty. When someone says five years to you, you think, well that's not very long. But if you were, say twenty, it would be an eternity.

Danny new, when Dash set his little CD player down gently on the nightstand and threw the bag on the bed, that the decision had been made. It wasn't as if it would really bother him, really this was only his old room in a small way, even when he was alive he had spent more time in the attic. But damnit why didn't the bastard just choose one of the larger rooms! Why did he have to take his room? He hated when people were in his room! It was like walking on his grave!

Didn't anybody appreciate the sanctity of someone's room anymore?

This guy had to go. He was not going to tolerate someone big idiot slime ball in his room for the next whatever many years. He wasn't!

* * *

Danny and Dash **do not** get along here at first. I mean, Danny throwing things and acting like the usual bratty ghost throwing a tantrum, Dash going through everything he can to get rid of him, complete with voodoo spells, séances, burning brimstone in the attic, and generally just pissing Danny off. He actually sets up a ward in his room and Danny walks right into it like a brick wall. 

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I will leave it with:

This is going to be hella funny


	4. Chapter 4

Dash had fallen into a light doze when he felt something hard thunk against the back of his head.

"Ow!" he shot up; glancing over his shoulder but nothing was there. He shifted in the tub, looking around for what had hit him. Finally, he saw, on the floor right beside the top left foot of the tub, a bar of soap. Reaching over the side he picked it up, rivulets of water dripping from his arm down onto the floor. "How the hell?" Something moved, a dark shape, flittered for an instant just at the farthest reaches of his vision. He turned his head, startled, but again nothing.

"Rats." He said aloud. They had rats here, or cockroaches. Really big cockroaches, or maybe the bug had cast a long shadow. Yeah. That sounded reasonable enough.

The water was cooling, he realized, he'd been asleep for quite a few minutes. His parents were no doubt wondering where he was, and the food had probably already arrived. Ah well, he felt a bit more relaxed now. Gripping the edged he pulled himself up into a crouch, leaned over and unplugged the tub, then stood to get out.

And felt another hard object hit him, this time on his back. He turned around fast, a bit too fast, and slipped. He fell back into the water with a large splash, sloshing big puddles out onto floor. "Ow." He said again, rubbing his bruised arm that had hit the rim of the tub, preferable to rubbing his bruised ass that had hit the bottom of it. In the water he saw the oval shape of another soap bar, reaching in between his bent legs he retrieved the slippery object and studied it.

Something wavered in his vision and he looked up, right in front of him. There was something there, over in the corner near the soap rack, it was hard to make out, but he knew something was there. Like waves of heat coming off a hot stove, it kind of shimmered.

Light blue eyes glared defiantly at him.

He blinked in surprise, and it was gone. Just an instant, a single sweep of his eyelids, and it disappeared. Dash dropped the soap back into the water, now a scant few inches deep, and rubbed at his eyes. He felt a slight sting from the residual soap on his fingers, but when he looked around again he saw nothing out of the ordinary in the room.

"Gas leak," he mumbled, "have to tell Dad there must be gas leak somewhere." He sounded, even to himself, a bit hollow and shaky.

Picking himself up from the tub a second time he padded over to the towels, careful of the spilt water that, even as he looked at it, was already slowly streaming towards the floor drain under the tub. With a heavy sigh, he dried himself off and, picking up his cloths, left the tub room and after a moment, the washroom as a whole and walked briskly down to his room. Glancing suspiciously every now and then out of the corner of his eyes.

-

Danny snickered as he watched the edgy teen hurry into his room to get dressed.

"Oh no, haunted bathroom!" He said allowed, and laughed again. Two hundred years, he learned to get his amusement where he could, and that often meant laughing alone. Settling down on the carpet, because floating around in nothingness was just a bit too creepy, even after a few centuries, he walked through the door and into the room.

He hadn't expected Dash to be leaning against the door, and so was surprised so walk right through him.

"Euuhg." The blonde shuddered, clutching the towel around his waist. Danny did not like the feeling either, and quickly zoomed over to the other side of the room, startled. Anyone who said ghosts walked through people for the fun f it, needed to die and find out first hand. It was not fun, total invasion of privacy.

"Ass." He hissed, but Dash didn't hear him. With a sniff he walked over to the window seat to take another peak at those papers. He wanted to know just what was going through that old woman's mind when she handed the years of work they'd done together over to this idiot.

Dash dropped his towel the exact moment his curtains fluttered, he stared at the thick drapes in confusion a moment before rolling his shoulders and, walking over to the bed, unzipped his overnight bag. A pair of old blue jeans and a loose shirt should get him through the rest of the day.

Kicking his pile of cloths and wet towel over into a vacant corner he flopped down to tie his shoes back on.

"I think I can like living here." He said to himself with a smile.

"Not for long." Danny answered with a laugh, slipping back through the curtains. "Not at all."

Dash didn't notice the movement this time, and simply got up to go back down to his parents. Danny stared thoughtfully after him a few moments, but decided against following him, instead he turned and disappeared into the large floor to ceiling wardrobe.

-

In case you forgot, Dash's mom called Dash's name when she came into the room. So Danny knows Dash's name from then. And he will tease him about it, scared little Dash, dashing away.

Next chapter probably not coming for another week.

Or maybe it'll come tomorrow.

Depends on whether or not I sleep tonight.

-Rin


	5. Chapter 5

I feel as though some of this was rushed, and I don't know why. Maybe because of how I ended it, it feels like the beginning of an ending to a story. I guess it should be, it's the end of Danny's long story. But it also could be that I had to butcher a pagan ritual to make it seem like ignorant teens were doing it. Though it was fun to mess with, I don't like making fun of religions, especially ones that are so often the brunt of jokes.

I just don't really like how this chapter came out.

Sorry it's so long. I know some people like long updates, but my usual reader is the working person on lunch break, but I tried to keep it in the simplistic style so many people like, even though I'm in a more complex mindset. Working on Rigor really has me thinking and writing with intense description. I found I'm mentally describing to myself the path I take home from school. I caught myself when I realized it, but it was spooky, like writing out my own biography.-sigh- I have an obsessive nature…

-

The nights were always beautiful here, beautiful and peaceful. Cool October with gentle winds stirring the brightly colored trees with their leaves of red and orange and browns and the rare green that somehow managed to retain the deep color even as it shriveled and dried, barely managing to hold on to the limbs throughout the autumn season. The moon would be full soon, a few days, and its large face sent waves of shimmering silver over everything, making it so easy to pick out even the most shadowed corner.

Of course, being dead and intimately aware of all your surroundings helped a bit.

Danny sat still on the window seat, ethereal face pressed against the boundaries of the house; he imagined he could feel the cool glass of the window but knew that whatever physical awareness's he had possessed while living were now nothing but faded memories and scraps of long lost senses.

He only wished his ability to perceive sound was listed amongst them, because it would be very calming if someone wasn't snoring like a freight train in the bed right next to where he was sitting.

Dash mumbled something and rolled over, cocooning himself in the blankets. Danny looked on in disgust, sure that at any moment he would begin moaning and groaning in the throes of a wet dream. He really would rather not be in the room when that happened, or anywhere near the room, or the house, of the freaking county.

Feeling desperately drained he went back up into the attic, hoping to find some semblance of peace and rest amongst his old memories. In the two hundred years he'd been dead, he had never known peace. What made him think a few hours staring out the window would change things? There was no peace for him.

It was the way things had to be, until everything was solved.

-

"A party?" Dash asked around a mouthful of cheep liquor store cereal. Willies was the only store less than an hours drive from his home, a measly gas station off the highway with iron bars across the windows and rusty pumps. They sold milk and cereal and had a few plastic kids bowls anyway so it was tolerable to some degree that they had to get their breakfast there.

"Yes, Halloween is in a few days and since we missed the town fair I thought, what better way to get to know the locals then to have a party?"

"Mom, we don't even have food in the house, how are we going to entertain a town?"

"Oh I'll go shopping today, and your father is taking care of the movers and other stuff." She smiled sweetly, and you can go on exploring like you were yesterday, you know the yard is real big, and there is even an old well I'm told." Dash rolled his eyes.

"So before we even get settled in we're going to have god knows how many people come over and poke around our house and maybe even get hurt because we don't know what the hell is where and what needs to be repaired."

"Dash, really don't be so glum about it. It'll be fun. Some of the kids from the high school you'll be going to will be there." Dash banged his head against the table and his bother hit him in the back of the head with a newspaper. "You'll be starting this Monday, why can't you make a few friends now before you get to class?"

"Or a few enemies." Dash mumbled and hurriedly finished off the milk in his bowl. Wiping his mouth on his arm he dumped the dishes in the sink and headed back up to the second floor. Today he would find the entrance to the attic, he was sure of it.

-

"A freaking party." He mumbled as he entered the room, startling Danny who was enjoying the quiet on the windowsill. Danny barely managed to get completely out of the way before Dash slumped down on the window seat. "She's having a freaking party, and I'm going to have to be nice and 'make friends' to whatever hillbilly my-date-is-my-cousin teenagers will be there."

"Hey, that's a bit offensive you know, I've never known anyone to ever date their cousin." Danny stated, knowing Dash couldn't hear him. "What do you mean a party? She can't have a party, there will be people!"

"She'll probably be out buying snack and buffet-table foods and campy Halloween decorations and the whole house will look like a child's theme park." Dash grit his teeth.

"And they'll probably be touching all over everything. Some stupid little twelve-year-old gets it in his head to carve his name in the wooden support beam on the porch and ruin all the beautiful carvings and then there are all the people walking around in dirty muddy shoes on the carpet and the greasy fingers from the food touching the drapes and the furniture and just having to look everywhere and see everything."

Dash made a face. "I'm going to tell mom to rope off the second floor. They're not getting into the rooms, or stumble into the attic when I haven't found it yet and seen what's up there and what may be stolen."

"Hey, you aren't ever getting up in my attic. What do you mean rope off the second floor? Why not rope off the whole house? Have the party outside, that's what everyone does. Nice harvest festival, like the town has. Schmooze with them in the dormant garden, stay out of the house."

Dash picked up the file of papers he had looked through yesterday. The letter was sitting on his bed, the folder lay open in his lap and he was leafing through the pages, they were all just a bunch of copies of newspapers, with a bored expression, not really looking at them.

"I mean, is it so much to ask for maybe a month before we start the parties and hoop-de-la? She knows how much I hate her making me entertain. Why not rub shoulders at someone else's party? Why host your own?" Dash let his head lull back and hit the glass.

"I take it your mother does this often." Danny said in agitation. "My sympathies, but really, can we sabotage this in any way at all."

"I so just want to mess everything up."

"So why don't you?"

"But then mom will cry and say she's a failure and then we'll have to deal with her moping about until she gets back on her pedestal."

"Oh. Well, that's a good reason not to. Agitated mothers are frighteningly persuasive."

Dash sat up and shook himself, adjusting his position on the cushion he turned his attention back to the folder, flipping back to the first page. "I've got to stop talking to myself." He muttered, staring at the faded newspaper.

"Hey."

-

"Fenton." Dash traced the name with his finger. What a strange name, but then weren't all names back then strange. Daniel, Jasmine, Madeline, they were, he supposed, traditional names and commonly used these days, but they all sounded so old, so foreign when coupled with the ink sketch of them.

"Jack Fenton and family the witches of Amity, boy were people nuts back then."

"Dash?" He closed the folder and sent it under the bed with a well aimed toss. "Dash sweetie, hey I finished the decorations." He had managed to get up and close the drapes just as she came in, stretching and pretending to have been asleep, he hadn't made his bed yet so it looked convincing.

"You did?" Dash didn't even think she'd left for the store yet. "What time is it?"

"Sweetheart, did you sleep all morning?"

"Uh, maybe, it all depends on what time it is." Dash flashed a grin and his mom scoffed.

"Its one in the afternoon, you did sleep all morning didn't you?" She had her hands on her hips.

"That would be a yes."

"Dash you have school starting in five days you can't throw off your sleeping pattern now."

"I know." He sat down on the bed and picked at the blanket. "I was just a little tired after the trip and I didn't sleep well last night." He offered.

"Well, come on down, see the decorations. Just think, Saturday night is Halloween and you can meet some friends." She touched his hair, a gentle affectionate little gesture moms and good babysitters showed kids, then she flounced out of the room.

"Yeah, just great, new friends," not that he had any old friends to replace, everyone at his old school thought he was stuck up and idiotic because his parents were successful and he was, well an idiot.

Dash grimaced. No, he just wasn't a school or learning type of person. He could be smart, if he wanted, he just didn't want to.

Dash finally got up from the bed and walked down the hall to see what his mom had done to ruin the house.

-

"Well what do you think?" She asked with a big smile on her face. Dash, his father, and the movers stood motionless in the foyer, looking from left to right, gaping. "Doesn't it look great?"

"It looks…swell dear." His father said pleasantly.

"Very good Mrs. Baxter," one of the movers scratched the back of his neck.

His parents turned to him expectantly. He took in a deep breath, looked around one last time, searching, looking for anything worth noting pleasantly on. There wasn't a single thing. "It looks like you got to the store last minute and bought everything nobody else wanted." Dash said flatly, walking around and critiquing everything he saw. "Is that supposed to be a ghost or a snot rag? My god are those skeletons, of what gelatin? Demons? No wait, boogers! They should be over there with the hankies, er ghosts. Hey look its grandma!"

"Dashiel Baxter!" his mother looked ready to throw something at him; the movers were trying to keep from laughing.

"Hey if anything it's really funny, maybe it can be passed as a comedy? A parody of the horrors of Halloween? Yeah that works."

"If you're trying to get me to cancel this party too bad." She glared at him.

"Why not? Why can't we wait another week? Another month? Hey how about until I graduate huh? I'm so sick of parties!" he swung his fist at one of the stuffed demons and it toppled over with a squeak.

"Look, I know you don't like being around all these people, but there are kids your own age here too you know," She fixed the demon, standing him back up and positioning him near the others. "You can at least try to make friends."

"Mom I don't like kids my age, and kids my age don't like me." He folded his arms, well aware that the movers and his father were heading back outside, probably to sit on the truck and have a few drinks before finishing up.

"You just never give them a chance."

"No, they never give me a chance! They hear we've got money, then they see my grades, then they see my cloths and my hair and all the wonderful things about me that make me so typically popular and they reject me for my blatant lack of individuality."

"Well maybe if you didn't try to-"

"Mom I like the way I look. So what if it's a knock off of every quarterback in the seventies? I like it, and I hate that everyone judges me on that. Why can't simply dressing how I like make me an individual? Why do I have to try my damndest to stand out in a sea of punk Goth, skaters, gangsters, sluts, and retro fifties housewife wannabes?" Dash stood a moment, waiting for a response. "No answer?" His mother just stared at the demon in her hands. "Well, that's just it isn't it. There is no reason, and I'm not conforming to this nonconformist society."

He turned and stomped up the stairs, catching, for the fleetest of moments, a wavy image, like a distant mirage, out of the corner of his eye but didn't pay attention to it and simply kept on walking. It seemed, for all the trying he did, he would have done better thirty odd years ago, no matter what people today said.

-

Thursday and Friday passed rather quickly, and with relative quiet. Dash spent most of his time in his room, reading the news articles on the Fenton family, who he quickly realized was the subject to be studied in this strange treasure-hunt, and his parents were busying themselves with the party.

What kind of treasure was worth hiding for over two hundred years, and why hadn't anyone found it yet if it was worth so much? Was it even worth anything? Sure the by its age historical value would be great, and it would probably fetch a pretty penny, but why was it hidden.

Setting the papers down again he rubbed at his eyes, straining in the fading light of Saturday evening. Halloween was coming, Halloween was coming.

"Skeletons will come after youu." Dash mumbled to himself with a grin. "Big black bats and ugly cats, Ghosts and goblins tooooo."

"Oh shut up or you'll be humming it all night." Danny grumbled coming out of the wardrobe, now filled with Dash's cloths, in time to hear the annoying jingle. "And I will too." Too late, Dash was smiling and humming and thumbing back through the news clippings he'd already read. "You remember that the hated party is tonight right?"

Dash rubbed at his ear, carefully closing the folder. "Mom's probably getting anxious now, she'll want to show me off to all the early arrivals." He slid off the window seat, opening the curtains only a fraction to allow him to pass, and with just as much care slipped the papers back into the nightstand drawer.

Tugging his shirt over his head and tossing it on the floor in typical teenage sloppiness Dash walked towards the wardrobe to get his chosen outfit. "Well, at least she didn't make it a costume party right?"

"You're talking to yourself again." Danny muttered.

"God I'm talking to myself again."

"Fuck, why do I bother." Danny grumbled.

"Wish this stupid key wasn't always so cold." Dash said as he tucked the key, which he had taken to wearing on a silver chain around his neck, into his turtleneck to avoid questioning looks from his parents. "eugh." He shuddered from the slight chill.

"I wish to god you'd put that key down for two minutes so I can get on with scaring your ass out of here." Danny yelled in annoyance causing the lights to flicker.

Dash glanced at the lamp. "Great power surge, it must be all those lights mom has up down there. Gotta tell her to use conservatively," Dash paused a moment. "Nah, let the fuse blow, it'll clear everyone out pretty well." With that, and his clean professional-casual outfit arranged on his body perfectly he headed out the door.

Down the hall and down the stairs, Dash could already hear people chatting and laughing and his mother's high-pitched voice was the loudest of them all.

"Oh Dash." There she was, with his wonderful father as her side ornament. "Come here, I was just talking to this brilliant gentleman."

A large Hispanic man with wide shoulders and a thick facial hair turned around to face him. "Hello." He didn't have an accent, despite his appearance, and reached a hand out to shake hands. Dash took his hand, not so much as blinking at the intense pressure asserted in the gesture. "Mr. Baxter, pleasure to meet you." Dash gave a firm nod, not trusting his voice; sure it would betray the pain he was in. Finally the man let go and Dash let a whoosh of breath out through his nose.

"He has a young daughter at the local high school, and she's just about your age, isn't that just great?" His mom said charmingly. The man was obviously uncomfortable with her open display of interest in making him and this unknown girl close. No wonder he was so foreboding towards him, the guy probably thought he wanted at his daughter.

"Paulina, can you come here for a moment?"

"Yes Daddy?" A curvy Hispanic girl broke from a crowd of teenagers to walk over to him. Paulina was, Dash noticed, a very attractive young woman, but the man needn't worry, even with her beauty Dash was far from mesmerized.

"Paulina, this is Mrs. Baxter's son." At her blank stare he continued. "He lives here, he's hosting the party."

He large green eyes immediately lit up. "Oh, oh really? Wow you live here in this big house? You're an only child right? Wow, are you gonna go to our school?" Dash couldn't seem to nod fast enough, this girl was as intense as her father, but more gushy than frightening. "Come on, come on. Come meet my socials. They'll just love you." She latched onto his arm and he felt, at the exact same moment a hard hand fall on his shoulder.

He gave a dulled look to the man who, reading nothing but boredom and, slight fear gave a nod and let his daughter drag him away to whoever may or may not hate him tomorrow.

Great.

"Hey guys!" Paulina shouted with unneeded glee. "Guess who this is!" She let go of his arm to push at his back propelling him forward and he found himself staring into the faces of almost every ethnicity he'd ever known at his other high school. There was a tall bulky Asian in a letter jacket, a little twig of a blonde, a curvy black girl, a plump geek with red hair and freckles holding cups of juice for everybody, and various other kids farther into the group who were obviously hovering.

"Your dad's new boyfriend?" The black girl asked and Paulina scowled.

"No Valerie, not my dad's new boyfriend, that's called statutory rape and its wrong, right Mikey?"

"Right." Another geeky looking kid with glasses who was right behind the redhead, this one slightly thinner, smiled handing her a drink from the tray. Paulina beamed at him despite the obvious clique difference that should be between them.

"And to think I almost believed she knew the meaning all on her own." The black girl, Valerie, whispered to the red-head making him laugh and almost drop the tray.

"My name's Kwan." Dash was shaken out of his observation by a thick pale hand jutting out towards him. He stared at it for a moment before grasping it in his own. "Its my familie's name, but everybody here just calls me by it, better than my first name, its kind of embarrassing."

"Dash." He said, surprised his voice was so steady. This was all just weird, Asians with blacks and Hispanics? In his high school the only time that happened was in detention. "And that's fine, my first name is Dashiel."

"Dashiel hu? Suddenly I feel blessed." The big boy's grin softened the jest a bit and made it laughable for Dash.

"Yeah." They pumped their hands twice and Kwan turned to the blonde.

"This is Star, short for nothing, nicked for nothing, and you don't wanna know her last name." Star elbowed him and he grunted in feigned pain. "And she's my beautiful wonderful girlfriend. Some advice, don't get your own." This caused some cheers from the guys and a few laughs from the girls, apparently Star ruled the relationship, but it didn't seem like Kwan minded too much.

"So, Dash, you really live in this old place?" Valerie asked. "I mean, last I hear some old shrew lived here."

"My great aunt." Dash said with a slight frown. "She passed away not too long ago. The house would have gone to my uncle and his family, but they died in a fire."

"Oh yeah, the Manson's. Wow you're Sam's cousin? Neeto. They were loaded." Star laughed. "You couldn't tell by the way Sam dressed and acted though, she was such a little weirdo."

Valerie made a dumping motion with her empty punch glass. "Ever heard of a thing called tact?" She growled. Dash knew, as he looked at the scowling girls, that he should feel insulted but couldn't find even a spark of agitation within him. He hadn't know the people. Even if they were family, how could he feel remorse or insult when he didn't even know them?

Another thing he lacked, it seemed, was human compassion.

"So, what do you guys just stand around and gossip or something because I should probably act like I'm doing something before my mom swoops in to cart me off elsewhere." He scratched his neck, glancing over at the woman chatting it up with an old Asian couple.

"The blonde chick talking to my grandparents? We can avoid her no problem." Kwan smiled. "Actually, hey, we were planning on doing something later on tonight anyway, brought all the requirements, why not do it here?"

"Wha?" Dash looked at the big guy a moment, confused.

"Yeah. Hey Dash." Paulina touched his arm, bringing his attention back to her. She'd been at his side the whole time. "You wouldn't happen to have, say, a bit of salt would you?" She smiled sweetly, her dark eyelashes drooping down. "It's a necessity we seemed to have forgotten."

"Uh, yeah its in the, uh, pantry. Mom bought some for the food and-"

"Great! I saw an old garden area out front out of sight of the driveway. You guys go set up while our host gets us the required protection." Paulina took Dash's arm again and, like before, pulled him through the crowd of people.

"So, where is the salt?" She asked when they reached the kitchen, opening up one of the many cupboards.

"Um. Butlers pantry, the big one that looks like a closet. Second shelf."

"Oh, yes I have it." Paulina disappeared into the small room and Dash brushed his disheveled hair back into place. He hadn't put any gel in it and it kept trying to fall down into the natural part in his hair. Wetting his fingers in the sink he patted the strands until satisfied.

"Finished pruning?" He turned to see Paulina tossing the little cylinder of salt back and forth in her hands. "Let's go join the other's"

"Uh, what are we doing exactly." Dash opened the kitchen door, leading her through the crowd this time to the front door. He saw her father frowning at them, and she waved at him before them slipped out into the cold night air. Dash was glad he had chosen the black turtleneck even though it was warm inside. He felt a bit of a breeze caress his face and dislodge some of his hair from its style. Very glad.

"A séance of sorts." She said offhandedly.

"You mean like, a summoning or something?"

"Yeah. We thought hey Manson was all gothic and dark right, so why not go witchy like her for a night? And what better night then good old Halloween. And you know there's a full moon tonight? The first in forty years. It's a sign." She said sign in a dramatic drawled out way that turned the whole conversation mocking.

"So you think you can actually perform a witch's ritual?" Dash stopped and stood on the porch looking out at the moving shadows, easily seen in the light of the large full moon.

"We looked it all up online and made our own chant and everything. Plus we watched all the great witch movies like The Craft, The Covenant, and Harry Potter these past few weeks. We're like, the experts."

When Dash simply kept starring she slipped her cold hand into his big warm one, squeezing it, brushing her arm up against his. Dash felt the urge to move away just a bit, but thought it'd be impolite.

"Come on Dash." Paulina said with a wide smile, shaking the little case of salt. "Lets go chat up the local spooks."

"Uh, sure." He said allowing her to once again lead him to the others, all gathered on a large patch of dirt, what was once the vegetable garden but due to fall coming and the caretaker hired by Maurice Foley it had been shriveled up, cleared away, and raked, leaving only a long empty lot of soft brown dirt. In the center was a bunch of rocks the boys had gathered and piled in a circle with wet looking wood glistening in the moonlight laid out in the center.

The tall Asian boy had a large stick in his hand and was busy drawing a wide circle in the dirt around the fire pit with a five-point star inside, the fire to be lit in the exact center. The blonde girl, Star was her name, had a big black purse full of thick white candles and laid five of the largest at each point clockwise as Mikey ushered everyone in and Valerie handed out the remaining white candles to each of them. All the while Paulina lifted the tab and began pouring the salt inside the small rut the stick had made in the soft dirt to form the circle counter clockwise, eventually passing Star.

Dash listened as they recited some poem, taking his thick candle from the curvy black girl as he tried to make sense of whatever chant they were saying.

"Oh creature of the night, sacred spirit of the moon, commander of darkness, we humbly ask that you bless and protect this circle, may no evil step foot on this ground, banish all negativity and harm from us, and let us be pure and clean."

They repeated it over and over until it all ran together in Dash's head and he couldn't even hear it any more, it took a moment before he realized the others had simply picked up on it and were now mumbling it under their breath, stumbling over the obviously rehearsed lines and clutching their candles for magical protection.

Kwan struck a match and lit their candles and the five of them, Paulina, Star, Mikey, and Valerie all moved to the large candles at the points.

"Oh creature of the night, sacred spirit of the moon, commander of darkness, we humbly ask that you bless and protect this circle," they lit the candles, and in one fluid movement turned around at the same time, and kept up the same monotonous chant as they walked over to the pile of twigs and logs, "may no evil step foot on this ground, banish all negativity and harm from us, and let us be pure and clean." And just as clean was said they all, at the same time, put their dripping candles down into the twigs and the flickering flames licked across the wood. In an instant a large fire burst from the top, the sudden intensity of it causing the five teens to step back hastily as it climbed.

"Think we put too much fuel on it." Star mumbled to Kwan and suddenly Dash understood what that wetness on the wood was. Still, it was a good theatric, as the other teens in the circle were tensed, holding their breath and watching the flickering fire.

"Don't leave the circle." Paulina warned, and even Dash felt like for some reason he had to obey her. "We're going to try and communicate with the spirits."

Dash felt a cold finger slide up his spine and turned to gaze back towards the big house, feeling as if he should, despite Paulina's warning, step away from them all and head back inside. He didn't like this one bit, and had the strangest suspicion that something not all together nice was lurking just on the edge of the circle, as though it were some sort of invisible barrier, testing it, waiting for an invitation.

He shook himself. 'Yeah, real logical Baxter. Next you'll be hanging garlic above your windows to keep the vampires at bay."

-

Danny watched from the patio as the fire was lit. What a bunch of morons. If they wanted to talk to the spirits why not just sit down with a pen and paper and chat? Preferably with some protection, but honestly was all the theatrics necessary?

He watched as a few specters flitted across the yard, avoiding the teenagers as any intelligent being would do on Halloween, yet their amateur attempts at a ritual and the negative energies coming from their desire to awe and frighten the others had caught the eye of a few less than pleasant things. Normally he wouldn't intervene, let them get the crap scared out of them like everyone else who tried spiritual communing without proper protection, what did it matter to him?

But Dash was in that circle, and if he ran spooked he might loose the key, and someone else could pick it up and then he may never get it back. He couldn't let that happen, so gathering up the newfound strength he had on this night where the veil was thinnest, he walked towards the fire. He would think of a way to get Dash out before the spooks, if any actually did happen, happened.

"We call upon the spirits on this all hallows eve, those who have passed on into the eternal darkness. We call you here, come to us, share with us your company." Danny scoffed. Yeah, open invitation to whoever may be lurking. These kids were doing something seriously dangerous and didn't even realize it.

His trudging invisible footsteps stopped just outside the circle, he could feel the small barrier, the very weak shield they had erected around themselves believing it alone would keep the bad things at bay. He kicked a stone across the thin white line, feeling the satisfaction he always got when he touched tangible things. He liked tossing and throwing stuff, even if it was exerting. He didn't want to try and break through, but he didn't want to wait around for one of those negative beings to decide to join them.

Dash turned suddenly and Danny caught the reflection of the fire in his blue eyes. He looked distressed for a second, but calmed down. Danny glanced over his shoulder. No one there, no movement from the party in the house, what was Dash looking at?

"Hey, did you want to join?" Danny snapped his head back, startled. Dash had turned just a little to face him, him, not someone else, him. Dash smiled, and held out a hand. "Come on."

Danny drew back a bit, staring at the hand extended over the circle.

"Come on, don't be scared. It's all harmless theatrics anyway."

Danny shook himself at the comment. "I'm not scared." He said, taking Dash's hand, the solidity of it against his palm sending a jolt of electricity through him, "Just a little… apprehensive." Dash really could see him, but, but how?

"Sure." And Dash pulled Danny through the barrier and into the circle.

Danny gasped at the sudden jolt, feeling air enter through his mouth and whoosh down his throat to expand his lungs. A thump, two thumps, three, a rhythmic beating of his heart. The heat of the fire brushed against his skin, sending chills through him and stiffening the hairs along his arms and neck to an erect attention. Hair brushed across his eyes and he reached up to brush it away, feeling as his cold hand wiped across his brow.

"Hey, you okay?" Dash asked and Danny turned to him, realizing he had squeezed Dash's hand a bit too hard by the slightly pained look on his face. He released the grip, but Dash still kept the contact.

"I'm fine." Danny said, breathless, feeling anything but. What was going on? Heat, chills, feeling? He watched as the Hispanic girl tried once again to call out to the spirits, not noticing one was pulled right into their circle. "Just a little cold."

"Yeah, I noticed." Dash said, rubbing his thumb over Danny's palm. "Your hands are like ice, here." Dash held the candle between them, lifting Danny's hand to hover near it. "Not as good as a bonfire, but it should help a little."

Danny smiled, cupping his hands around the flame like he was protecting it from a strong wind, enjoying the feel of the heat brush across his cold fingers. It was nice to get a little warm, it seemed like he had been cold for far too long.

His gaze drifted from the flickering flame to Dash's face, smiling, looking at their hands, then downward to the key around the blonde's neck.

Whatever reason for all this, one thing was certain. He had to get the key.

This was the perfect opportunity.

-

Let's see, Danny and Dash, one possessing a key, one desperately wanting to obtain said key. Why does this sound so familiar? –glances over atSilver Bells-

I've always had a big Paulina/Mikey Valerie/Melvin obsession, and this fic just kind of barely hints at it. It all fits in with my Kwan/Danny craze a year or so ago, my popular minorities all getting some looser love, guess it's my California integration experience. Seriously the biggest problem we had at Barstow in my generation was the GSA forming at the high school, and it lasted maybe a month. If you throw down the race card in Barstow someone's going to smack you. Yet I visited a high school in Bakersfield and it was like an invisible barrier was drawn around everyone.

I realize some schools, I certainly hope most, are like Barstow and everyone gets along fine, but seeing Bakersfield reminded me that some are not and I figure, why not have Dash come from one of those schools. It would be weird for him to suddenly walk into a group of such variety when he's used to hanging out with the wonder bread of society. Though, as he mentioned, he's not used to hanging out with anyone. This day and age if you don't have some sort of individuality style you're not shit (at least in my school) and his knockoff seventies football look wouldn't give him the kind of points it does in Casper high.

Anyway, bending some Samhain facts for the sake of fiction. I used a twisted version of a basic ritual, but I doubt the idiots casting could tell the difference between that and a séance, the ritual used is in no way to be trusted as truth, it is, in fact, horrible fiction with only a few noteworthy facts. I had fun ruining everything though.

Also, though I have never tried it, I am not at all certain you can actually give a ghost flesh and body for a few short hours on Halloween, even with a full moon. Though a manifestation of will may make it seem tangible, giving them a body, yeah far be it from me to doubt the universe but even in my world, I do not think that is really possible.

Remember kids, to always practice safety when trying to commune with spirits, and be sure to understand the steps and procedures throughout the ritual, especially if you have no experience, or experienced person there with you. As said by someone I can't recall right now, "They can't all be good." Play it safe, keep limited contact and have some measure of defense.

A bit of something someone obviously didn't tell Dash, but if at any time you feel frightened or on edge, don't go through with it. Trust your instincts; they're often smarter than you are. I know mine are.


	6. Chapter 6

"Who's that kid with the new guy?" Lester asked Paulina, dowsing the muddy circle of rocks once more to be completely sure it was out. She shrugged, stirring the mush with a thick branch.

"Donno, probably some homeschooled looser invited with his grandparents or something." She glanced up through her thick wavy hair to see the two making their way up to the porch. The group had stayed out until the fire had burned away and people had gotten fidgety. Not willing to take the chance of someone stepping out of the circle and doing who knew what to the magical energies they were gathering, because in the movies bad things always happened when people stepped out of the circle, they had dowsed the flame and closed the circle. "I didn't even see him come out with us, strange."

"He's dressed all weird."

"Its Halloween nitwit, he probably just came from a costume party, probably has a kid brother or something." Tossing the big stick aside she grabbed him by the arm and tugged him in the direction of the house. "All right, we're all done; let's go get something to eat. My Dad's probably flipping anyway."

-

Dash had long since tucked the shivering brunette under his arm, enjoying the feel of the lithe body against his firmer, thicker one. "You really should have brought a jacket," said Dash, "it's like, fifty degrees out here."

"I didn't expect," Danny bit his lip, looked up at Dash and contemplated, "to be outside this long." He finished.

"Yeah, me either." He chuckled, "But look," he hugged the boy closer, "warmth."

Danny glanced at the hand squeezing his shoulder and frowned "Mop-molly." he muttered lower than Dash's ears could pick up. If he had known, he wouldn't have spent the fifteen something minutes in circle plotting out exactly how he was going to nab the key now that he was corporeal. His own arm snaked around Dash's waist and he pressed his head against the shoulder behind it. "Hmm." He hummed a pleased sound, willing the ramrod out of his spine. Maybe it wasn't the most acceptable thing to do, but it was the easiest access to the infernal key, and it _was _damnably cold out here.

Dash laughed, a ridiculously pleased expression on his face. Danny resisted the urge to dig his knuckles into a specific point along the larger boy's back. "Well," Dash tried, "My name's Dash, Dash Baxter. I live here."

"I hardly thought you were dead here." Danny retorted with a tight, cruel grin Dash didn't quite notice, but he did flush rather well in embarrassment at the jab and that brought Danny's mood up a notch. He wondered if he acted so familiar with other strange boys he'd only met, then discarded it as not being his business.

"You're not a people person are you?"

"It's been said." Danny replied, feeling the shift in the arm around him. Dash was no longer comfortably intimate with the smaller teen.

"Glad I guessed before you let it be known." He attempted a laughed.

Danny didn't answer. Dash saw his attention had been caught, for some reason, by a falling leaf.

It was mud brown, hardly a pretty color for an autumn leaf, and twisted in the air as though it were having trouble staying afloat. The other leaves blew around it tauntingly, their artful perfection, something to behold during the day, had turned into a shivering shadowed performance. Somewhat sinister if one angled their dark poetic thoughts just so.

A warm, solid Danny was less for the angst at the moment then the lonely brooding astral version of twenty minutes ago, and so rather than let the poor deformed outcast flutter helplessly to the ground as any cynical ghost would he extended his hand and allowed the husk to rest in his palm.

This was all a very important character millstone, complete with slow motion actions and thoughts whirring by at unmeasured speeds, within his own mind but to his companion he simply halted mid conversation to reach his hand out and catch a falling leaf. A dried, chipped, unattractive falling leaf.

"Well what's your name?"

"My name is…" he glanced up at Dash's face, a smiling curving his lips, "Danny…and we just caught a leaf on Halloween."

Dash blinked, confused, letting his arm fall from around the teen. This was an unusual boy. "_You_ caught it." He curved Danny's fingers around the exposed item with his own before the wind took it away. "I'm told its good luck."

Danny looked down at their touching hands and felt a bit of embarrassment sting his cheeks. He was behaving like a giddy loon. What kind of poetic symbolism could his ancient mind find in a tattered old leaf? "Nonsense, what do I need of luck?" or good health for that matter. He was dead! And no matter how suddenly besotted Dash acted he was merely responding to their unexplainable familiarity due to spending so much time together. What did the body know of life and death other than its own?

They had been standing still so long that the Hispanic girl and her boy now past, looking queerly at them, Danny particularly, before climbing up the front steps and entering the anteroom to rejoin the party.

Dash watched them go, mind lounging idly in some rather interesting instances were a bit of luck might be useful. Not that he believed a leaf could be lucky; his teenage mind had simply latched onto the phrase. His curved lips spread wider.

"You're really quite perverse." Danny thumped a hand onto the boys shoulder, but before Dash could answer he shoved his hands under his own arms, effectively crumbling the leaf in his fist, and scowled. "Can we go inside now? I swear I'll have frost nip on my ass by the time this conversation ends." He clomped up the stairs in his shiny leather boots.

Dash admired the back of dust colored breeches for a moment before joining him.

"That's better." He breathed in the warmth of the house, closing the door, and the chilly night, behind him.

"If by better you mean squished," Danny crowded closer to the blonde, "how many people are here?"

"I don't really know," he glanced around the room, surely there hadn't been _this_ many before, "but we've got the upper story closed off so it only looks like a lot." He paused. "I think." He turned his attention back to the kid practically clinging to him, eyebrow raised. "There aren't any people upstairs."

_Pompous presumptuous pig._ That the peawitted boy would think he would be carted off like some debutante whose chaperone wandered a bit too far, it was plain madness! "Lead the way." He linked his arm through Dash's and allowed himself to be pulled towards the staircase. Could he pass by such a suspiciously convenient offer of seclusion with the object of his affliction? Surely a mad dash down the hallway would halt whatever sodomitic activities that tiny brain of his may be planning.

Oh if he were still alive he would be throttled good for letting himself fall into such a cabbaged situation. His sister at the very least would have boxed his ears.

But he wasn't, he was simply solid again. Never mind the intake of breath or the beat of a heart, he couldn't still be alive, and wouldn't make the faithful, hopeful leap to such a conclusion until he also discovered he could bleed as red as before. And his sister and family were just as long gone as his original body.

He could still see the sway of their corpses from the gallows, particularly his sisters, whose light weight had prevented her neck from snapping like his parents had. It had taken forever before she strangled. At least, it had seemed like that to him.

"Oh Dash! Come here a moment, I want you to meet someone!" Danny felt Dash's muscles beneath his fingers tighten as his mother came into view.

"Mom," Dash turned a bright smile to his mother, who halted in her charge towards him to stare at the two mixed into the crowd. "I'd like you to meet someone too."

"Daniel." Danny offered, and dipped his head in an acknowledging manner. "Your party is going nicely Mrs. Baxter."

"Yes." Mrs. Baxter blinked. Danny wondered if she would place a hand over her breast like the women of the hamlet always did when he pinned them with his eyes. His mother and sister never did such a thing, and Danny quickly acknowledged it as a technique used by ladies most likely to swoon. He sternly avoided contact with such weak women. "Thankyou, well I'm Dash's mother." She gave an uncertain grin, somehow uneasy with the hard edges of the boys smile. "I'd thought I'd met all the parents, but I suppose I missed yours."

"I've only recently arrived." He explained, not relinquishing his hold on Dash's arm though Dash looked clearly uncomfortable in this position. Danny was getting a bit of perverse pleasure from the exchange. "My parents are deceased I'm afraid, but my guardians wanted me to get out and become reacquainted with our neighbors." Who said powerful guardians were he couldn't fathom, but surely the universe had some kind of reason to place him in this blundering mess.

"Oh my dear, I'm so sorry to hear that!" The emptiness of the phrase was not lost on Danny, but that was admissible as simple human nature. He wasn't one for empathy either, and didn't begrudge another their false statements of mourn.

"I had no idea." Dash said softly and Danny glanced out of the corner of his eye, assessing this sudden change in demeanor. Dash looked a bit ashen at this declaration, understandable as he had just realized he had tried to tup an orphan, Danny entertained a fantasy of his realizing said urchin was in actuality an apparition. His lips twitched in amusement. Dash was no longer holding his arm in a limp polite interweave as he had been doing since his mother approached, but subconsciously triangled his appendage against his hip and locked their elbows together with a bit more possessiveness then he had previously.

"It was long ago." He found himself waving off the surprisingly genuine condolences, even if it wasn't in a condolence form. The sad note in Dash's voice was enough to know he had stepped into a sensitive area of conversation. Better to maneuver out of this quickly.

"Yes, well Dash I wanted to introduce you to some of your little friends' parents." She latched onto his other elbow and attempted to steer the two of them in some odd direction that pointed away from the staircase.

"Mom, can we please save this for some other time?" Dash complained, he dug his heels in a bit, causing the perky blonde to halt.

"Dash, we discussed thin." She said sternly.

"Mom." He glanced down at Danny, then back up at her, clearly trying to communicate his torn priorities. "Please."

Mrs. Baxter narrowed her assessing eyes at Danny an instant, but didn't answer verbally. Instead, she simply let go of Dash's arm and held up her hands in defeat, purposefully turning her back and marching away to her chosen destination.

Danny didn't quite know how to react. Shouldn't he be a bit more downtrodden that he was now free to be alone upstairs with a male with questionable taste? He stomped down the pleasure of seeing the woman retreat and instead turned his attention to the collar of Dash's turtleneck. It was all simply for the key. That was it.

"Shall we?" Dash asked softly, and began leading him once again through the thick crowd.

Danny wondered why he wasn't just a little bit apprehensive of what would no doubt happen next, apparently after several hundred years he wasn't the bashful youth he had once been.

-

It hadn't taken even his slow mind long in realizing leaving an orphaned antisocial in the middle of a crowded house party was a very bad idea. Danny had already confessed to not being a people person, and with him having no family, it was hardly a wonder why. He had said "guardians" not sister, uncle, grandparents, or even brother, so he was either not on good terms, or in foster care. Most likely the later, so being around people he didn't know possibly would be the worst thing for him.

"Dash." Danny said, stumbling to keep from falling back down the stairs "Dash will you stop please you're pulling my arm at an angle it wasn't meant to go."

And the way he talked! This kid was hardly likely to get many friends at a social gathering that required both people skills and careful wording and-

"Dash!"

"Wha? Oh sorry." Dash unlocked his arm and let Danny take his own back. "Guess I was kind of preoccupied." Danny snorted at that. "Hey, you could at least pretend to be friendly, you are at my party, and I did just save you from being overcrowded and pecked at."

Danny did his part to look suitably contrite. "Sorry, I just really don't like big gatherings." Considering the last one he attended was his family's execution. And on the subject of things he didn't like, overzealous, arrogant sexual deviants should really be on that list.

"Forget about it." Dash grumbled. "I don't like them either, yet my mom's always throwing parties and making me schmooze. I hate it." They stopped their walking. "Heh, um this is my room." Dash pressed a hand to the partially closed door, but hesitated, glancing back at Danny.

"Don't smirk at me." Danny scowled. "It's impolite and arrogant."

Dash blinked. He hadn't even noticed he had been smirking, thinking more of how familiar those blue eyes were and where he may have seen a pair like them before. In fact, everything about the teen was oddly familiar; hell for all Dash knew he may have just found his soul mate. The idea brought a bit of the giddy romanticist out from that locked "unmanly" door in his mind.

Danny just stared up at him through his dark bangs. "And why exactly," he asked softly, "did you bring me up here to _your _room?" A shrewd smile slit his lips, "You don't even know me."

Perhaps his reason lay in the intensity of those pretty blue eyes, or maybe the slight cruelty in his bright smile, or maybe it was because out of all the people he had met in his entire life and all their hardships Dash had never met someone whose past actually made him care, and he didn't even know a damn thing about Danny's past.

Dash blushed, realizing he was staring. "Maybe I'm just attracted."

Cool fingers touched the nape of his neck. Dash let out a breath, adrenaline humming through him. Ice cold. He looked back at the predatory change in the teen's facial features. _Really, really attracted._

Danny hadn't warmed at all since they came inside, he noticed it as well, the fire beneath the pads of his fingers reminding him that he could not create his own heat. He edged his thumb across Dash's pulse idly in thought, listening to the hitch in the teen's breath, a reaction even through the fabric of his shirt. It was as he suspected, he wasn't really returned to life.

The thought should have saddened, at the very least disappointed, but instead Danny felt some strange curiosity bloom within him. He rubbed his thumb against Dash's vein again and delighted in the increase of thumps between the first and this second caress.

Why did such a simple act as this cause Dash to react as he was when they had been all but embracing throughout most of their walk up here and he had done nothing but talk? Did the sudden seclusion increase his desires? He had heard of some who enjoyed being watched while in the throes of passion, was Dash not one of these? He had believed all deviants were pretty much the same, did they enjoy different things? If so, what would Dash like, surely not animals, he didn't even have a goldfish. And how would that work exactly? Did he only favor those of his own gender, but he hadn't reacted to the other young men, particularly the well built Asian? Perhaps Danny was just emasculate enough for the man to convince himself he was not being perverse.

Or, perhaps his neck was just a supersensitive spot.

Danny wondered if all scientists scrutinized and calculated their moves as he was doing. Somehow breaking it all down to questions and experiments made it all the more intriguing. It was almost acceptable.

Dash stared at the contemplative boy, "You know we should really," but he never finished the sentence.

Danny had practically had to jump to breech their distance in height, but when he got both arms around his neck and their lips found each other the little attempt at a leap didn't matter, neither did the fact that the door behind Dash was slightly ajar so when he thumped back against it, momentarily off balance, it swung open noiselessly and allowed them to topple into the room.

Dash didn't know if it were the kiss or the hard thunk his head had taken when he hit the floor that made his breath catch and his eyes roll back, but whichever it was Danny's moist tongue slipping between his lips kept it that way. His small, cold body sprawled on top of him, hands entangled in his hair, Dash could feel his pants tighten as his own hands found narrow hips and gripped them firmly.

His skin was hot, his heart thudding wildly between their chests, but Danny's own body was cool and calm, his pulse a constant steady beat. His curiosity piqued he broke the kiss, breathing heavily while the brunette attacked his cheek, his ear, nuzzled up near the corner of his eye. A light butterfly kiss grazed against his flushed face, the painfully soft sensation tearing a moan from him. Eyelashes like baby rabbits fur, just like his hair.

Danny finally allowed himself to be pushed back, exhaling softly, finger touching his lips.

"First kiss?" Dash asked voice hoarse. Danny nodded. "Wouldn't have noticed," if not for the bleary look in his eyes and the tentative way his little pink tongue slipped out to moisten his lips. Not that Dash had such a deep well of experience either. Dash touched a finger to Danny's soft black hair; it stirred beneath his fingertip as if the disturbed air around it were ripples in the water, pulling at them.

"You're so pretty." Dash breathed.

Danny leaned into the touch, settling his weight fully onto Dash's torso and off his knees, crossing his arms across Dash's chest and staring up at the flushed teen. "Pretty?" he asked, incredulous. Dash nodded, smiling that stupid lopsided grin fondly as he continued to stare. "You sir, are no sweet poet."

"I can live with that." Dash couldn't understand how hair could be so dark it drank up light, or skin so pale it glowed, but it was there beneath his fingers and all the romance novels in the world wouldn't give him the words to describe the vision the boy created. Still, if he could have it in his hands what need did he have of the pen? "I can live with you too."

Danny pulled back suddenly, his petite bottom dropping into Dash's lap. Dash, surprised at the sudden movement, propped himself up on his elbows to stare curiously at the boy.

"Heh," Danny snorted, "you _really_ think so?"

Dash cocked his head. "Well yeah, I mean we've got all this chemistry. I thought that instant attraction crap was all in books but, I like you." Danny's eye twitched, he looked a little between incredulous and sickened. Dash gave him a sincere pleading look. "I like you." He repeated.

"Yeah, well it goes unrequited," Danny hissed, "because I know I can't live with you."

Dash tried to sit up but Danny wasn't moving from his spot. "What are you talking about?" Dash looked up at the irate little brunette, beyond confused. This was practically a love at first sight relationship, the guy had literally jumped on him, and he was HOT! Dash had always figured he'd end up with some thick lipped emo with dyed hair and a piercing or two. How could he just toss it aside?

Dash groaned internally, sure he had just walked into one of those clichéd romance plots where the main character's love interest tried to cry ignorant of their obvious compatibility. Figures he would have to be among the real life examples. "You can't tell me you didn't feel the connection." Dash complained.

"Hardly." Danny sniffed. "My apologies, but I don't consider myself one for sodomy."

_Sodomite?_ Dash wrinkled his nose, hardly anybody says sodomy anymore. "And yet here you are straddling me." He retorted. "You can't honestly think you could just kiss a guy and then say you're not gay, you don't even have the helpful excuse of alcohol to fall back on." A pause, "Do you?"

Danny's jaw fell. "I don't dip into that well thank you." He snarled.

"Which one? The gay or the drink?"

"Neither! And to even suggest I do is so, you're such a, I can't even think of a name!" Danny gripped his hair but, Dash noticed, didn't move to get up off his lap. "You are so infuriating, I can't even begin to describe you."

"Hey," Dash interrupted, noticing something. "What's that in your hand?"

Danny blinked, his fists coming down to his neckline. "What do you mean?" He played.

"Don't toy Danny, what do you have, I just saw it shine." Dash reached out but Danny swatted his hand away, effectively smacking Dash loose the balance he had placed on his left elbow. Dash's head hit the floor for the second time that evening.

"What do you mean saw it shine? There's no light here?" Danny challenged.

"That's stupid, of course there's light, I can see just fine there has to be light." Dash paused, realizing for the first time that Danny was right. There was no light. No wonder his hair had appeared to be nothing but bottomless darkness, it had no light to reflect. But he could swear he could see perfectly, even make out the details of Danny's glowing eyes. "Oh, wow." Dash's eyes widened.

"What?" Danny snapped, irritated and trying to hide his full fist by crossing his arms.

"You're glowing." Dash muttered. And was it just his imagination, or was he also a bit…see through?

Danny glanced down at himself to discover that he was, indeed, glowing. It wasn't a magnificent shine, in fact it didn't illuminate anything around him, bit this kind of luminescent pallor in his skin. He stared at his hands in astonishment, he hadn't been glowing before, or at least it had been too bright to notice, even outside where the bonfire and moon could be used as an excuse.

Hey, there was dirt under his nails.

And, if he concentrated, he was fairly certain he could see Dash's shocked face beyond his palms, or rather through his palms. Was he reverting back to his astral form? Awe, but he thought he'd at least have until freaking daylight. That was less than an hour, what a total disappointment.

His slow, cruel smile sent a shiver through Dash, making his spine straighten, the muscles in his shoulders and neck tighten, and the hairs on his arms rose to attention. None pointing to anything good.

"Sorry, looks like I'll be leaving sooner then I realized." Danny dangled something in Dash's face, it gleamed metallically in the rising glow of his near translucent flesh.

"The key!" Dash cried shoulders and neck rising from the floor.

"My key." Danny corrected, using one near invisible finger to push the boy back down by his forehead. "And you aren't ever going to find where it goes."

And then he was gone.

Just gone!

No more weight in Dash's lap, no more glow in the room, no more totally cute potential boyfriend, and no more key!

Dash took in a few deep breaths, wide eyes dancing wildly across the dark room, then let out a yell.

* * *

Poor Dash, you really should have used those last few minutes with him getting some, instead of arguing over stupid stuffs. Just goes to show you, when Dash opens his mouth, nothing good comes out. Now he gets to spend a good part of the next chapter looking like a loon claiming he just made out with a ghost. His friendship making skills so are not improving.

I love Danny's way of speaking. Obviously since he's been hovering around and interacting with Sam and her grandmother and on the occasion Tucker, he should know how to speak appropriately, but like an out of style parent he still uses terms from his own generation.

Now the real fun starts, because once you find out you have a ghost, and that you and that ghost have some (ahem) things in common, and that the ghost is around near _all_ the time, you tend to not want to do some personal stuff. You know, like dressing, bathing, _masturbating_, and sleeping.

It's this whole voyeurism phobia.

See you when I update Photo Opportunities (Because I swear I will!)

-Rin


End file.
